Maurice River Township

Maurice River Township is a township in Cumberland County, New Jersey. In 1657, the local Lenape Native Americans of Wahatquenak sunk the Dutch ship Prince Maurice, for which the township was named. On 19 January 1748, John Worledge and Thomas Budd laid out a community in the area, and it became a township in 1798. From 1789 to the 1830s, the "Port Elizabeth" section of Maurice River Township engaged in trade with the West Indies, but it was later eclipsed by trade with Philadelphia. In addition, the oystering industry was destroyed by a 1957 parasitic disease which killed the local oyster population. In 2016, Maurice River Township had a population of 6,562 people.